The "Americans should fear government and so bear arms" seems fatally flawed to me.
Let me paraphrase slightly.
Americans should live in fear and so should bear arms.
Apparently the recommendation is that EVERYONE should ALWAYS carry a multiple round weapon. and this would make us all safer?
America has many times the gun related death rate as other developed countries, yet we have higher gun ownership rate. Go figure.
Logic would dictate this as so and evidence bears it out.

If by paraphrasing you mean completely misinterpreting, then well done sir. I will translate this quote you used. Multiple times in history governments have gone against their people who were un-able to defend themselves because they had no way to do so.(IE: Russia, Germany, China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.) America could end up no different from any of these examples if the right to defend ourselves from these threats are not in place. What you are telling me is that we should give up our rights to prevent things like these because well, that would never happen to us. Just as an arrogant teenager believes that a car wreck would never happen to him, so he does not need his seat belt.

The reason behind the second amendment was not so you can protect yourself from scary criminals or to feed your family. That is just common fucking sense that you would use everything in your power to protect yourself and provide for your family.

Go to this site. #1 in gun murders, South Africa. South Africa has gun bans, gun registration, background checks, etc. #2 Colombia might as well have total gun bans. #3 Thailand You must be given permission by the government, issued a license, have a valid reason (Determined by the Gov.), and be THRITY-FIVE years old minimum.

Do not get me wrong, I am not trying to say gun bans cause more death, though I do believe they cause more. I am simply pointing out that there is no evidence to support either side of the argument. There are many countries with strict laws that have lots of crime and vice-versa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFU1CxYNnG0
This video talks about Australia and how their crime rates rose.
Also the UK violent crime rates have gone through the roof since gun bans. Though murders have decreased.
One explanation could be that criminals don't have to kill anyone cause they are never resisted by their victims.

One point remains no matter how you look at it, who is better suited to fight against their own government going tyrannical? The #1 country is the US. Hope to God it stays that way.

If by paraphrasing you mean completely misinterpreting, then well done sir. I will translate this quote you used. Multiple times in history governments have gone against their people who were un-able to defend themselves because they had no way to do so.(IE: Russia, Germany, China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc.) America could end up no different from any of these examples if the right to defend ourselves from these threats are not in place. What you are telling me is that we should give up our rights to prevent things like these because well, that would never happen to us. Just as an arrogant teenager believes that a car wreck would never happen to him, so he does not need his seat belt.

The reason behind the second amendment was not so you can protect yourself from scary criminals or to feed your family. That is just common fucking sense that you would use everything in your power to protect yourself and provide for your family.

Go to this site. #1 in gun murders, South Africa. South Africa has gun bans, gun registration, background checks, etc. #2 Colombia might as well have total gun bans. #3 Thailand You must be given permission by the government, issued a license, have a valid reason (Determined by the Gov.), and be THRITY-FIVE years old minimum.

Do not get me wrong, I am not trying to say gun bans cause more death, though I do believe they cause more. I am simply pointing out that there is no evidence to support either side of the argument. There are many countries with strict laws that have lots of crime and vice-versa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFU1CxYNnG0
This video talks about Australia and how their crime rates rose.
Also the UK violent crime rates have gone through the roof since gun bans. Though murders have decreased.
One explanation could be that criminals don't have to kill anyone cause they are never resisted by their victims.

One point remains no matter how you look at it, who is better suited to fight against their own government going tyrannical? The #1 country is the US. Hope to God it stays that way.

I've heard "everybody needs lots of guns" contend that this will prevent us from becoming a Nazi state? The majority of our country would have to fall victim to propaganda first. Propaganda, misinformation, freedom of speech, and control of media outlets should be of greatest concern.
I lived through W administration. I hope that's the closest this country gets to the level of mass misinformation campaign that can lead to fascism.

Who "urgently needs a gun to protect themsleves"? A criminal may need this option or someone else not interested in the services of our law enforcement professionals. No it's time to restrict these weapons.

I don't think you understand the responsibilities of law enforcement in our modern society. They are responsible for finding out who did a crime and cleaning up crime scenes in a way that preserves the ability to prosecute the perpetrator. They are not obligated to stop crimes in progress or to defend you, especially when such actions would put them at risk. And that's if they're able to get to the scene of the crime in time to do anything about it. If you want the ability to stop a crime against yourself, the only way to have that is to retain the capability for self defense for yourself.

300 million Americans to 2 million law enforcement professionals but they're all not in the field. Are you advocating doubling the size of law enforcement? They didn't stop Boston, Oklahoma, or Tuscan and it wasn't for a lack of effort, bad things happen to good people everyday. Banning a catagory of rifles isn't going to save one life on the streets of NYC, Chicago, or LA because that's not the weapon criminals are using there. All politicians are doing is grandstanding and using slight-of-hand to have the people forget about the real issues, "it's the economy stupid", more jobs less crime.

Do you live in Vermont? From the web site of my Kansas sheriff's office: "The mission of the Johnson County Sheriff's Office is to protect life and property, deter criminal activity, enforce state laws, and maintain civil order while operating safe and secure detention facilities."

My comment was simply in what situation would a background check or cooling period delay the legitimate need for a firearm. Home protection is an intentional thought out decision not affected by any waiting period.

I live in Seattle. See how that "mission statement" works for you. Multiple hostile people enter your home. You call 911. Make sure you keep track of how long it takes for cops to arrive. Google "police response in petit murders" to see whether the cops will stop such a crime in progress. Mrs Petit successfully communicated to the police that she was being held, they showed up outside the home and waited for 45 minutes for things to settle down (while the wife and daughters were being raped and murdered inside). The police are not obligated to defend you, nor will they. They are responsible for cleaning up after and making sure the right guys get punished.

WASHINGTON, June 27 2005 - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.

Justices rule Police do not have a Constitutional duty to protect someone as an Individual.

We need a contructive alternative to what has happened in the past. All you hear about is restricting guns and no other remedies.

Reading comprehension may not be your strong suit. Seems like geography might be a stretch too. That's okay. I'll fill in the missing parts for you. I live in Seattle. The Petit murders happened in Connecticut. But even aside from the desires of the individual police officer to help you out and defend your person... how long do you think it will take the cops to get to where you're being robbed or assaulted? Even if they're waiting with engines running and coffee in hand? Two minutes? Five? How much can you or your family be hurt by a thief or assailant in those minutes?

Now, there is at least one person who might be seconds away from being able to defend you... and that would be you. But that's only going to work if you have access to the best tool for the job.

Nice theory, but how often has it gone down that way?
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Assume that someone starts shooting in a darkened theater, then a few others haul out their pieces and start to fire back. Would you like to be there, or, more to the point, would you like to be the coroner?
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These nice, bloodless, theoretical scenarios are all possible, but more likely to end in tragedy. The idea of the gun as equalizer is responsible for a lot of problems.
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The wild west wasn't like the novels and movies. A good guy with weak eyesight, poor aim or palsied hands would always bite the dust if up against an outlaw with quick draw, keen sight and steady hand.
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That is why we have police, and why citizens often acted as a posse [officially deputized or not]. Your one valid point, self defense in circumstances where law enforcement is remote, refers to what are in most of the urban area of the US [where 80% of the population live] inapplicable circumstances.
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You have a constitutional right to arm yourself if you are a law-abiding citizen. Do you have a right to use it in a way dangerous to others? I've heard that some hunters win the "Darwin Award" by going out shooting under the influence. Do you think the drunks should be allowed unrestricted use of the gun they may legally own?
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It is irrational to suggest that guns be less well regulated than cars and trucks. Owners should be trained, and should be deprived of their right if they abuse it.
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I remember a few decades ago that some NRA members left the organization and founded a less libertarian club. That might happen again if the moderates who see the need for some regulation get fed up with the NRA serving as money transfer agents between the armaments industries and the congre$$.

In response to the idea of "guns being meant to kill people", I should have to offer an interjection. Firearms are used for hunting, yes. They are used in law enforcment and military as well, with the intention of wounding or killing others.

Firearms, and I personally own several, are indeed used for sport as well. To ban ALL firearms would be a violation of the rights granted by the second amendment of the United States' Constitution. So, how do we go about this process? In my opinion, to keep it short, civilians have no place owning assault weapons. A few shotguns for hunting pheasant shouldn't be a problem, but if the Constitution were taken literally, it would only be legal for us to own muskets, much less something that empties a 30 round magazine in under 5 seconds.

Absolutely. As I posted earlier I own several shotguns, rifles and even two pistols (wheelguns, .22 and .38). I hunt deer and ducks a lot. I see no use for assault guns or high capacity semi auto pistols. The assault guns are all chambered for 5.56MM(.223 Rem), absolutely useless for deer and not even legal in most states for deer. Those guns were built to kill people, too light for deer. The media tries to put me in the same bag as the NRA when they call me a "gun owner", I resent that, I'm not one of them. I wish there was an alternative to the NRA, true sportsman for guns without all the assault rifle baggage.

Um, you misread something and badly. Civilians in the days of the Constitution owned naval vessels and townships maintained cannon. They had somewhat nominal arms parity with the militaries they were expecting to engage. If we are to understand the meaning of the 2nd Amendment that the adult population of the US should be able to defend the country from standing armies (which seems to be the most rational meaning of the text), then we should be rolling back the March 1986 prohibitions on machine guns and easing the restrictions on large caliber weapons so that they are more commonly owned by civilians. Since machine guns and DD's have almost never been used in crimes in the US since the end of prohibition, this would seem to be a reasonable proposal...

Your hunting has nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment. Effective weapons to defend yourself and your community are the point of the 2nd Amendment. If anything, dangerous sniper rifles like dad's old scoped 30-06 are significantly more dangerous than a short range AR with limited sights.

As an aside, I have several AR uppers but only two in .223 which are set up for 3-gun competition (and I would only take hunting for small game). The rest of my AR's are in calibers appropriate for hunting medium to large game (6.5 grendel, .300BLK, .458 SOCOM). So the belief that AR's are inappropriate for hunting is as uninformed as the rest of your post.

It's about time we take the Constitution literally. I'm tired of people thinking they have some "privacy right" in their PC. And those Mormons! Silly, thinking they might be entitled to freedom of religion.

True, homicide in the US is four times higher (4.8 US 1.2 UK per 100,000), but it's also worth noting that violent crime overall is more frequent in the UK (39 US 43 UK per 1,000). It's also notable that the forcible rape (5 US 10 UK per 10,000) and assault (12 US 28 UK per 1000) are more than twice as frequent in the UK.

Suicide is actually equal for both countries (12 per 100,000). Robbery is also equal (10 per 10,000).

Put another way, in the US you have a .005% chance of getting killed, .05% chance of getting raped at 1.2% chance of getting assaulted. In the UK you have a .001% chance of getting killed, .1% chance of rape and 2.8% chance of assault. Do lower homicide rates make up for higher crime in other areas? For me there is no clear cut winner here, and I don't believe that either country has a better policy in regards to crime prevention. I do believe that the current gun laws contribute to this disparity.

Excellent! Any discussion of policy should involve cost/benefit analysis. Gun opponents refuse to do that and insist that their policies have nothing but benefits. But gun ownership prevents from 500K to one million violent crimes in the US every year. Do we really want more violent crime in order to stop very rare instances of school violence?

The only way to stop such violence is with armed guards in the schools. No mass shooting have taken place anywhere near armed guards.

I was listening on the radio to a recent immigrant from India who said that he struggled for years to get to the US. He wanted to leave India because of the violence against the citizens by corrupt police. Citizens aren't allowed to have guns to defend themselves from corrupt police, so the police abuse the citizens. He feared the US is heading down the same path.

That would involve redefining and reinterpreting vast amounts of crime reports and data, most of which would be unavailable to Dutch university.Any attempt to align definitions would also involve enormous amounts of subjective assumptions.

Also, the murderers were students at the school. Other students had tried to warn adults and officials of what they two killers planned but no one would take them seriously. The tragedy at Columbine happened because all levels of defense broke down. Had the school had teachers who were armed as well as the guards, there might have been fewer deaths. Still, none of the legislation proposed recently would have prevented even one death at Columbine.

I love it when statistics come into play... One can achieve any desired result when the numbers are manipulated to achieve a desired outcome.
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There are 2 Actuaries in my family.....ask them how statistics are collected and can be manipulated and they laugh out very loud and long, especially when it comes down to any Government using them.
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I have read in may publications and have a family member that liaises with the Metropolitan Police, Security Service, Interpol and Surete and they have confirmed that the the Brits categorize and keep statistics on all crimes but report on crimes in a unique way, including solved crimes that have resulted in prosecution and court results and not all unsolved crimes. Crimes that went unsolved while collected seem to be unreported/underreported or selectively included in the published crime statistics.
.http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/focus-on-viol...

There is a lot of data here...so there can be a lot of interpretation. The statistics show that overall violent crime (depending on the definition) is rather high in England..America definitely has more gun related crime, however that is not the whole story.
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We will never really be able to accurately compare the data reported by any country, suffice is to say that for the most part todays humanity is a violent culture.

My old statistics professor use to rant regularly about the abuse heaped upon his chosen mathematical discipline by politicians and marketers.
I imagine he would be as equally horrified by the original post - I guess some of his puritanical approach rubbed off on me :)

UK and USA crime data was at no point designed or captured so that is could be used in any kind of meaningful comparison.
Moreover, the US gun debate is of no relevance to the UK policing whatsoever, and so any concept that the UK should legally alter the way it defines and records crime to suit a debate taking place 5000 miles away is a little surreal.

The point is that the situation in the UK is irrelevant to whatever the USA chooses to do (or not do) for gun control.

Guns are made for the purpose of killing people (and animals). Owning guns means that you have the intention to kill people (or animals)! Should owning guns (for the purpose killing people) be legally considered as "criminal intent" in courts?

This is an ignorant statement. I own two guns with no intention of ever killing a person or an animal. I shoot clays and targets for recreation. You should not assume that every person who owns a firearm has violent intentions.

What if you are a target shooter, does that make you a mass murderer in waiting.
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Some people drink and drive and end up killing people. Does that make every car owner or driver a drunken killer.
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People have been killed by a baseball bat, does that make every little kid in Little League Baseball a potential killer.
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The list can go on.

Under your premise there are very few activities that would not legally be considered "criminal intent".
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Lets try to stay in the realm of reality.

Just remember that overall violence in society is down, and things have been way way more violent in the past, so blaming video games or gory movies kind of misses the 99.99999% of human history where we didn't have them, but still managed to get some really juicy mass murdering going on. For most of that time though you had to do it up close, so it was a lot more difficult for a solitary nutter to go through a load of kids without someone stopping them (in fact didn't it happen in China, but because he only had access to a knife the bloodshed was alot reduced).

We have developed a system that protects liberalism at the expense of democracy. Our rights are guaranteed against even a majority of Americans who would like to abridge them. Only a supermajority spread over a geographically wide area can abrogate the first two amendments to our constitution in the way you suggest. Many peoples have not been willing to make that concession to individual rights against the interests of the majority, but until we completely overhaul our constitutional jurisprudence, that is where we stand.

The GOP has gone so far to the right, by their standards today Reagan would be a moderate and George Bush #1 would be a liberal. Do you remember in the early 90's when Bush #1 cancelled his NRA membership when the NRA called the ATF "jack booted thugs"? Today, no way any Republican would dare to say anything bad about the NRA. I voted in my first presidential election in 1968 and voted GOP six times in a row. But I haven't voted GOP since 1988, they got too extreme for me. By historical measures, these young right wing guys just don't know how extreme they are.

Mr, you might be right about violent games, but about censorship? The only reason we started to have a debate about guns was because the media put plenty of attention on the Newton case. Not talking about a problem does not solve it, it just helps those who don't want to deal with it. Just like the oil spill in Arkansas, where the media was banned. The media makes people accountable, that's why some love censorship so much.

But just set aside what you already feel and think about it for a minute. What if the thing that you believe is the right course of action actually contributes to the problem more than you thought it did? And, if it does, how come you are not willing to alter your position?

Yes, correlation and causality are not always easy to distinguish. For example, there must be some factor responsible for the statistical fact that a gun in the home is more likely to injure someone in the household than be used to shoot an intruder. Now, it could illustrate Homer's assertion that "The blade itself incites to violence", i.e. weapons have a psychological effect on humans (as well as the obvious effect their presence has on the, er, "tactical options"). On the other hand, it could be that people inclined to violence are attracted to guns.

Or it has to do with counting suicides as part of that reason. And since people are more likely to kill themselves than be murdered, you can come up with a number used to imply gun ownership is more likely to get you killed, when nothing actually supports that insinuation. Politician's sleight of hand with statistics.

Well, yes... since suicide results in a corpse, it counts as one of the factors in the statistical analysis that tells us guns in the home correlates with an increased danger to those in the home. There's no "slight of hand" involved.

I suspect there are many people in the world who made it through a long dark night because the quick and near-certain means of ending the despair wasn't at hand.

To my knowledge, there is nothing showing that owning a firearm increases the likelihood of someone committing suicide, so the claim that it is an increased danger in the home doesn't seem to hold water.
That firearms make up a large percentage of our suicides in the US is no surprise; if you were planning to kill yourself, wouldn't you choose a method that gives you the best chance of doing so fast and painlessly? Hanging and poison are still commonly used as well, but do increase the chance of a more painful death.
There is also the fact that the US doesn't have a significantly different suicide rate than many similar wealthy nations like France or the UK, despite the much higher prevalence of firearms in the US, also discredits your assertion that having a firearm available makes suicide more likely. That might make more sense if suicide were most commonly a 'heat of the moment' type of action, as opposed to being a result of long periods of depression, with the suicide often being planned out.

Given all that I've written above, and adding that accidental deaths with firearms are very uncommon, portraying firearm ownership as a significant threat to the safety of a home is misleading. Now if politician's misuse of statistics to imply something that isn't true in order to drum up emotional support of whatever policy they are pushing couldn't count as political sleight of hand, I would love to know what would.

I repeat: I suspect there are many people in the world who made it through a long dark night because the quick and near-certain means of ending the despair wasn't at hand.

While preventing suicide may or may not be a crucial public policy goal, it really ought to be taken into account by anyone pondering the purchase of a gun. A few more: Do you enjoy a drink or three every night? Is your marriage doing well? If you're single, do you often feel lonely or angry? Do you often hear black helicopters hovering outside your window?

"I repeat: I suspect there are many people in the world who made it through a long dark night because the quick and near-certain means of ending the despair wasn't at hand."

I'm not sure why you appear so determined to insist that suicide is an act of convenience.

Regardless, there isn't much else I can say to you. You are fighting pretty hard to not give up on a bad argument, and haven't backed up anything you've said with solid reasoning or numbers. Now, though, you have dropped to a strange mix of insinuations and strawmen. It is obvious you are set in your opinions of what kind of people own firearms, and you will not let anything change that.

Nothing can stop you from declaring yourself the winner of the exchange and sailing away, guy. You can even mis-characterize my posts as it pleases you. I leave it to the cyber-audience to judge the arguments, both mine and yours.

Background check, censorship, better mental healthcare and responsible media are all variables that can influence in a positive way violence in our country. Our cinematic culture for more than 100 years now has made possible for our collective imagination to be an external force that influences the relationship between imagination and action by making the boundaries between the self and action permeable. In other words, what I would call a tactic influence by our culture where responsible citizens develop technologies for profit who transform our civic life in a negative way. The cost/benefit of Media to the society need to pocess a numerical value that represents the degree of risk the product has in the contribution to violence. The creation of this numerical value will incentivize the Media industry to consider the amount of violence its product contain. The value of this number can be written into a regulation so that it can be taxed to do a better job keeping out too much violence from the collective imagination of the nation. We need a cultural lobotomy. We also need to make the business of going to war more expensive to avoid getting into one so readily. Every generation since our founding has had to participate in a war. Our people can't remember a generation that did not experience the horrors of war. This shared experience can' t be an advantage to violence control. Our leading violent act is carried out by young people between the ages of 18 and 23. They are committing suicide with a hand gun. We consume more illegal drugs then anyone else in the developed world. Our male soldiers rape our female soldiers in disturbing numbers and inequality is at a very high level adding to the strength of the external forces influencing the relationship between imagination and action

I agree with your observation of the cinematic culture.
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I saw the movie Django....what a gratuitously violent movie. The Story was good, we just did not have to have every wall painted in blood. But then that is Tarentino at his best or worst, depends on your perspective.
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If you look at the highest grossing movies they are typically not this type of violence. There was a study done a few years ago (wish I could find it) that proved about 3 % of the movies made the same revenue as the other 97% combined. That 3% were typically not like Django. The 97% were all violent/horror movies.
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Since we find a way to tax or place fees on everything else like Hunting, Fishing, Cars, Boats, Oil Changes, Sugary Foods, Camping, Parks etc. Why not come up with a cost benefit formula on the entertainment industry based on the violence of content and then fee or tax it accordingly. The cost of the tax/ fee would be paid by those who view or use the content just like the other items listed above. Seems reasonable......
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A they say on infomercials.....BUT WAIT IF YOU....We have a little problem as the Entertainment industry will cry fowl and scream about their 1st Amendment rights being infringed.
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So where do we go from here?

I don't know if you can blame violent movies. I'm so old I can remember "Gunsmoke" in the 50's. Sheriff Matt Dillon used to take out dozens of bad guys on every show. There were lots of other similar shows like "Have Gun Will Travel", "Johnny Yuma" etc. We had very violent shows on TV but it was a kinder, gentler time.

...since the Eisenhower Commission on the causes and prevention of violence (and even before this effort) we know about the relationship between what we learn from others about violence or experience and the effects it has on our behavior. Fear appears to be at the root of the problem. If the Media were able to show violence in a context that would only reside in recent memory and not end up in your permanent memory of your brain, then, the influence it has on the relationship between imagination and action could be neutralize.

...since the Eisenhower Commission on the causes and prevention of violence (and even before this effort) we know about the relationship between what we learn from others about violence or experience and the effects it has on our behavior. Fear appears to be at the root of the problem. If the Media were able to show violence in a context that would only reside in recent memory and not end up in your permanent memory of your brain, then, the influence it has on the relationship between imagination and action could be neutralize.

Those shows you mention . . . not really all that violent. Many of them were shown after 8:00 EST when the kiddies were assumed to be in bed.

Remember "Cisco Kid," "Buffalo Bill, Jr.," Annie Oakley" or "The Lone Ranger?" What happened to the bad guys in these? Well, the Good Guy always "shot the gun out of their hand." And, we young 'uns believed it could be done!

The point of this silly charade was to avoid showing truly violent behavior to children. Sounds incredible but that's the way people thought then -- violent images injure children.

Agreed, however the special effects were not as graphic. And you are right maybe it was a kinder gentler time. We also took responsibility for our actions back then. We did not blame it on society or claim to be a victim of some societal cause.

Reply to BOTH A. Andros and Barchaser:
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As an side, and at the risk of revealing ourcollective ages I remember the same shows. We did not have TV until late 1960's so I listened the shows on vinyl (I beliece they were 33 or 78 rpm disks.).
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Also as kids, we played war, cowboys and (dare I say it) Indians, we got into fights, went camping played sports etc. We did not have any of the distractions that the kids today have. Boys were allowed to be boys.

Overreaching politicians using dead children and tragedy as props to promote the failed (and rejected) policies of the last century. And doing so just to throw some red (blue?) meat to an increasingly small (but vocal) slice of their political base. Whipping up animosity and further dividing an already deeply divided country in the process.

How long until we see a return of the Clinton era militias? After all, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. The NRA will emerge stronger and less willing to compromise. The rural right will be radicalized. The gun hating left will wonder what hit them. We have seen this story play out before.

Stop poisoning the community well. Stop dividing the country and turning us against each other. Stop campaigning and start governing.

How is the Administration able to find so much time and energy for this political stunt when have done nothing on the economy and jobs? What do their actions say about their priorities?

Will someone bring us some politicians that will start acting in the long term best interest of the nation, please.

Bob
You write: "Will someone bring us some politicians that will start acting in the long term best interest of the nation, please."

I am somewhat pazzelled. What is then, your solution to this carnage. How else do we go about change to that sick gun mentality in U.S. - except listen more to those gun-worshipers at NRA. If you have gun-related killing, you sove it with more guns into the hand of more people to stop them. That does not make any sense.

The bottom line is, that cowboy mentality and gun cultural in US has to come to en end.

NRA "will become stronger and less willing to compromise". I don't think that is possible. They are extremely strong and absolutely unwilling to compromise on anything.

The only reason the NRA even exists is to promote and increase gun sales. I'd be willing to bet that the pay package for LaPierre and the rest is directly tied to gun sales. So, for those guys it is all about personal enrichment.

They are doing their usual thing whenever there is talk of any kind of gun control. They start the "Obama Gun Grabber" tirade and all these guys who already own tons of guns get paranoid and run out and buy some more guns. For the NRA, what's going on now is just standard operating procedure and its a good thing for them.

I certainly seem to be on the right track when proposing that gun control advocacy be organized as a public health issue similar to the anti-smoking campaigns of decades past. There were no fewer than 12 comments obfuscating, misdirecting and personally attacking the concept that protection of children from accidental death and injury by guns in America should be a public health right far more important than a citizen's right to bear arms. That proposal, below, included the suggestion that The Economist publish a special report on Guns and Gun Violence to provide Americans with objective information of the relative benefit and costs that gun ownership incurrs in the USA that are not present in other western societies. The purposee, like the smoking campaign, would be to allow people to take well informed attitudes towards guns and gun violence very different from the emotional and confused rhetoric existing today.
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Unfortunately, I didn't realize the significant differences between the tobacco issue and the gun issue. Most smokers agreed that cigarettes were bad for them and wanted to quit. Most gun owners believe (some fervently) that guns are good for them and want more of them. The job of gun control advocacy is made so much more difficult because changing attitudes requires mach greater effort than simply having big tobacco appear at congressional hearings and tearing apart their arguments that smoking doesn't kill people.
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It is unfortunate that unlike smokers where you can medically show them the blackening of their lungs from repeated smoking, you cannot show a gun owner the blackening of his/her heart from repeatedly leaving loaded guns in unsecure places for children to find with tragic consequences.
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Finally, I realize that the primary arguments from pro-gun people against the fact that fewer guns in a society means less gun violence, fewer gun deaths and injuries, are denial, obfuscation, misdirection and ad hominem attacks. To deal with all of those arguments at once, the primary purpose of a gun is to kill or injure something at a distance in a much more effective manner than any other individual tool available. Because of that purpose they must have a special regulatory place in law and attitudes about their use or misuse are informed by their primary purpose. So please, there is no comparison between guns and swimming pools, ladders, ovens and household cleaning agents, all of which have their own regulations for their uses and tragically can cause unintended death and injury. I repeat, the primary purpose of guns is to cause death and injury, it is not an unintended consequence of its use. So, please people, stop the misdirection.

Some of this I agree with, and most I don't. What you don't seem to realize, still, is that for 99% of the gun owning public, safety from accidental shootings, and the using of owned guns for intentional homicide is not a problem. Most of us seem to be able to separate legitimate possession and use from negligence and criminal activity on our own. If that were not the case, then the rates of violence and accidental shootings would be incredibly high.

Yet you, and people like you, seem to have this idea that they have some kind of supernatural power to corrupt the hearts of people. To you they are almost like "the one ring to rule them all."

Guns are a tool. We practice with them on the off chance we should ever have to use one, no matter the circumstances. Random people breaking into houses to rape and pillage is not unheard of, nor are riots or widespread civil unrest. And, it is appalling to me that you seem to think that we should all just let the criminals steal, rape, and stab people all they want, so long as no one dies.

To that school stabbing in Texas this week you and your friends seem ok with saying "well at least no one died." Well that is true, but more than a dozen people were still stabbed. I would rather not be stabbed at all. And it is not the fringe belief of a radical to think that it is perfectly legitimate to dissipate that threat before I actually get stabbed. No one has any right to stab me, or force me to get stabbed, just because I probably wont die.

Some of us still want the freedom to live our own lives without the government's constant meddling, for better or for worse. We have a right to make our own choices, and take responsibility for them. That is what freedom is.

Imputing eroneously what I believe and advising me that I have friends that think the same way in an attempt to diminish my arguments actually is not a legitimate counter argument in a debate.
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Living in country where gun control is accepted and ownership is extremely low, I alread find American "rates of violence and accidental shootings" incredibly high. However, in all my posts I have stated that self defense and hunting are legitimate uses for guns and ammunition of certain types and sizes. Violence of any nature is abhorrent, but much of American gun violence, particular kids finding and using unsafely stored firearms, is so easily preventable if Americans were to change their attitudes towards their guns and allow for the rights of children to grow up safely to supercede the rights of owning a gun.

"Violence of any nature is abhorrent, but much of American gun violence, particular kids finding and using unsafely stored firearms, is so easily preventable if Americans were to change their attitudes towards their guns and allow for the rights of children to grow up safely to supercede the rights of owning a gun."

I don't disagree that violence in abhorrent. However, setting aside the other issues of your reply, your argument makes no sense. It fails to acknowledge that there is a positive trade off for many families to own guns for self defense, among other reasons. I know you say that you think that is a legitimate use, but your final conclusion does not follow from that.

Accidental gun deaths are preventable, but you fail to recognize that those types of deaths are rare. Accidental gun deaths are less than 2% of all gun deaths every year. CDC numbers show about 600 a year in a population of over 300,000,000 people, not all of them children. Even conservative estimates show at least 100,000 incidents of defensive gun use every year (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-12-27/how-often-do-we-use-guns...). How many of those are in circumstances involving children I cannot say, but it would not be unreasonable to say that even a mere 10% of them are.

Yet you cling to the idea that the existence of private gun ownership is a net loss for the lives of children. But I don't see how you can know that to the level of certainty you impliedly claim. Taking guns out of private hands may prevent some deaths, but it will allow others. This is a trade off, and you have yet to acknowledge it, or even make any attempt to quantify it.

This is what bothers me. You seem so committed to your cause you don't want to acknowledge its shortcomings out of fear of undermining your position. That is exactly what the NRA does, albeit in the other direction.

I acknowledge that my position has a trade off. It is unfortunate, but it is true. No system is perfect. Criminality and negligence will always exist, and it is ridiculous to demand that anything be perfectly safe, or have zero risk, in order to be good policy. That is not realistic.

If you're going to treat gun crime as a public health issue, then I hope that you'll rank it in proper priority. After all, very few people die each year from gun violence in America. Look at the numbers.

Public health deals with prevention. Everybody dies. America has many more very preventable gun deaths and injuries (why do all pro gun people ignore the high number of gun injuries when debating gun violence?) than all other western countries with stricter gun control laws. Therefore, not only are these deaths preventable, the prescription for prevention is clear and simple (I didn't say easy), restrict access to guns.
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It is fortunate that in the debates that led to restrictions on smoking, smokers didn't say, "Hey we agree with the tobacco lobby, my cigarettes aren't injuring me or killing me". It's unfortunate that in the gun debate the opposite is true because gun violence is mostly random whereas cigarette harm is widespread. It becomes doubly unfortunate that much gun violence (I didn't say most) of the most abhorrent nature accrues to people who don't even shoot, like second hand smoke running rampant. As well, unlike cigarettes it doesn't require years of shooting to be harmed, it only takes one shot.
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If public health and ER doctors and nurses were to raise their voice about what they see and what they believe, it would IMHO add to the debate on guns and gun control.

So what I am proposing is that the cost/benefit of the trade off for families to own guns for self defense versus the potential for those guns to be used in tragic accidents (or worse) be analysed using economic methodolgy to allow for more informed, less emotional debate on this subject.

When discussing gun violence, I always refer to deaths and injuries and place America on a global stage to compare its situation to other first world countries. When I see counter arguments, they always solely focus on gun deaths and (parochially) only use American information. I find it reprehensible to hear an argument accepting the number of accidental gun deaths and injuries by reason that it is such a small proportion of the American total ... without referencing that the American total is 4 to 5 times bigger than other western countries. It is the magnitude of the American gun violence problem that IMHO quite revoltingly can immunize you to the smaller size of very preventable accidental gun deaths and injuries.

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Certainly it is a trade off, and I do propose that legitmate self defense and hunting purposes should allow for ownership and safe storage of certain types of guns and certain amounts of ammunition. I have proposed that The Economist endeavour to provide the quantification of this trade off, because it is certainly beyond my means, capability and resources.

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One proposal to endeavour to reduce accidental gun violence would be to charge the unsafely stored gun owner with murder (or manslaughter) in the event of a death and aggravated assault with a weapon in the event of injury ... instead of simply unsafe storage of a firearm.
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I understand that personal responsibility and the consequences of risky behaviour can be both rewarding or tragic. I also understand that private owenership of guns has legitimacy. What I have been suggesting is that good policy for the 21st century on guns and restrictions to ownership, access and use be informed in America by objective assessment of global analysis of trade offs taken, what has worked and what hasn't as well as American experience such that Americans can know what the true costs and benefits are of current policy and what can be expected from future policy alternatives. Placing America in a global context can only serve to broaden the information available to Americans so they may make a more informed decision. This is realistic.

600 deaths. Not so impressive is it? Then there's the reduction from 800 deaths in 1999. Then we can compare it to other accidental fatalities, total of which there were 119,733 in 2010. (latest available year)

Yep it just seems small in relation to America's Gun problem. Accidental deaths from guns are not something we should be spending millions of dollars to stop. Not while 33,000 people died in 2010 from traffic accidents, and 33,000 more died from poisoning.

Can we do things to reduce that 600 to an even lower number? yes. But the law of diminishing returns is very unforgiving.

Accidental Firearm injury doesn't even make the top ten in 2011. In fact it ranks at 20, with 14,675 people. The CDC doesn't even provide data past rank 20.

Well I'm happy you can accept that without questioning the definition of the word "accidental". Sandy Hook had an accidental component to it because I believe Lanza's mother had no intention of allowing her son access to her guns. How many other intentional homicides or aggravated assaults begin with the perpetrator gaining accidental access to guns. However, can't convince you that America has a gun violence problem far worse than any other first world country, so I again, good luck to you and your family living in a land where the law of a gun could become a reality sometime in the future.

I think I’ve heard a similar ramblings from dystopian science fiction. First off lets acknowledge that comparing gun ownership to smoking is, on its face, absurd. Guns aren’t a drug, have the same tangency to ‘health’ as a kitchen knife, and are protected under our constitution. Further your Orwellian abuse words leads to similar musings on the ‘disease’ of free speech. This allows people to incite violence, hurt people’s feelings, and more. How is gun ownership anymore destructive? After all the idea of Communism has led to the mass murder of millions. As previous posters have pointed out, there are very real downsides to allowing freedom, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. However, your spirited advocacy to restrict the freedom of an individual’s ability to defend themselves, whether from other individuals or the government, displays the fragility of such freedoms. Also, news flash, the law of the gun is already ever present. The only question is who’s holding the gun.

Yes our politicians are spineless but not just on this issue. In general they are a bunch of self serving asses that have the masses convinced that they should be re-elected en masse every 2 or 6 years and 4 for the President.
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The link below is one of the best articles that I have read on this issue, including the current status of the mass murders that TE has as the subject of this and many other blogs and is the subject du jour of the country at this time. The Author is a preeminent Constitutional Lawyer EDWARD J. ERLER from a California University and he writes a very good article on the subject at hand.

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2013&month=03
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That being said putting the 2nd amendment on the ballot would be problematic and would also lead to any number of the other amendments being so placed. As goes one so will they all go. There are many very good rights conferred by the Constitution and the subsequent amendments. Trusting these rights to voters that seldom understand the issues and can be swayed by campaign commercials and politicians that are the best that money can buy would be a very risky proposition at best.
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On many occasions past and present SCOTUS Justices have made statements in their opinions that when changes to laws or constitutional rights are requested by one special interest group or administration one must be careful as what may be appropriate in one piece of bad legislation sets a precedent to change another piece of established law that will have detrimental effects on other laws or amendments to the constitution. The reason for the statement is that the original constitution and its subsequent amendments and language are so interlaced that changing one could have a negative impact on any one of the others. The more modern amendments are not as closely tied together.
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Enjoy the read as it shows how closely linked one amendment is to the other and how the repeal of one of the Bill of Rights effects other amendments to the constitution in a way few people comprehend.

The tone of your post perplexes me. Some of your commentators believe it to be sarcastic or something akin to tongue in cheek. The elephant in the room in your article seems to be the second amendment, which we refuse to concretely consider abridging or in fact admit the costs of our refusal.

Or perhaps you're being ironic when you write, "What Americans have agreed not to look into is telling," and then steadfastly do not discuss the second amendment. Perhaps you are in fact an American citizen.

Nevermind, I believe I have answered my own question. Thank you and congratulations on a large number of comments. You come in at a recent second only to M.S.'s article on polygamy, perhaps telling about the United States in its own right.

There is a way to change the second amendment, it’s called a constitutional amendment. Funny how no one has suggested such a legal route, but a cynic would say because it has no support among the broader public.

This whole "debate" on background checks is absolutely pathetic. I can't even believe that even after the horrors of all recent mass shootings, this is all our lawmakers could muster, a DEBATE on background check. Absolute hogwash and does nothing. ZIP. It is a testament to Obama's failed leadership that we cannot even get a bill to ban assault rifles and high capacity magazines.

Our politicians are completely spineless and on the take from the NRA. They are looking out for no one but themselves. Once again they failed us. Harry Reid would not even put Diane Feinstein's bill on the table for voting, and he calls himself a Democrat.

Put the banning of assault rifles and high capacity magazines on the election ballot in 2014 and let the American people vote!! A large majority of us are sick and tired of being held hostage by the NRA and the minority of vocal gun nuts. Repeal the 2nd amendment!

You might want to check your statistics on the people who do or not support the Second amendment, you may be surprised. The Majority support it in a number of ways, depends on the content and nature of the questions asked, but over all there is generally a majority that support it.
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Yes our politicians are spineless but not just on this issue. In general they are a bunch of self serving asses that have the masses convinced that they should be re-elected en masse every 2 or 6 years and 4 for the President.
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That being said putting the 2nd amendment on the ballot would be problematic and would also lead to any number of the other amendments being so placed. As goes one so will they all go. There are many very good rights conferred by the Constitution and the subsequent amendments. Trusting these rights to voters that seldom understand the issues and can be swayed by campaign commercials and politicians that are the best that money can buy would be a very risky proposition at best.
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The link below is one of the best articles that I have read on this issue, including the current status of the mass murders that TE has as the subject of this and many other blogs and is the subject du jour of the country at this time. The Author is a preeminent Constitutional Lawyer EDWARD J. ERLER from a California University and he writes a very good article on the subject at hand.

The Assault Weapons ban was pulled because it had a 50% support rate among the American Public, would certainly have face stiff opposition in an already horrid legislative climate and is still not conclusively proven to be effective at anything but banning cosmetic features.

The magazine capacity bill was still on the floor last I checked govtrack, so you may want to put that wad back in your musket.

The fact is though the only non controversial measure out there is the Universal Background check and even that's the result of a hefty bit of misinformation. such as everyone believing 40% of gun sales are done without background checks.

Truth is since these sales are not tracked in any way shape or form there is no good way of knowing how many occurred, much less how many that is in relation to sales done with background checks.

Finally you want an AWB and a capacity cap when the only common thread to mass shootings is mental illness. But like the article's author wrote, it is interesting what we refuse to talk about in America.

Mostly, gun control is a dead issue. I'm in favor but it wont happen. Its been a dead issue since 2000 when Gore couldn't even carry his home state of Tennessee. The NRA won. What concerns me now is all these heavily armed nutcases running around constantly yelling about their rights. A lot of these guys are just plain vicious.

You shouldn't be concerned about heavily armed so-called 'nutcases' yelling about their rights. You should be worried about actual nutcases that manage to obtain weapons. Yet this is the least talked about issue in the national debate. Leftists are not really concerned about stopping the next Newtown shooting, they want instead to eliminate or severely limit privately owned guns.